A01=Jann Matlock
Author_Jann Matlock
Category=DSBF
Category=DSK
Category=JBCC
Category=JBSF1
Category=NHD
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Product details
- ISBN 9780231072076
- Publication Date: 03 Feb 1994
- Publisher: Columbia University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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This study demonstrates that three subjects traditionally discussed separately - prostitution, hysteria and the popular novel - share a discourse of marginality and of female marginality in particular, central to the 19th-century experience in France. Studying representations of female sexuality and the obsession with it in 19th-century France, Matlock scrutinizes contemporary debates on: tolerated prostitution; sexual continence; the relationship of female sexuality to madness; the dangers of literature. The contemporary fascination with prostitution provides a model for understanding the relationship between novel-reading and female sexuality in a world where the novel was considered dangerous, because it would awaken affections and introduce women to the world of sexual experience. Matlock uses studies of prostitution, trial reports, advice manuals and novels by Balzac, Dumas, Soulie and Sue to analyze the social, political, medical and literary issues supposedly evoked by female sexuality.
